Lori, the heroine of this rousing narrative,
is attempting to flee the hectic East Coast for a better life
in the West. She is a child of the Seventies who feels misled
by the rebellious "boomer" generation and disappointed
with life in 1980s New Jersey. Spurred by the tale of her pioneering
grandparents, who immigrated to Montana, and following her friend
Madeleine, who has all the answers, Lori quits her job, loosens
her ties, and sets off into a wild frontier.

Lori's story is one of love for people and for places that are
more mythic than real. Her pursuit is as painfully familiar as
it is impossible: she seeks meaning in life while working dead-end
jobs, falls in love with uninterested partners, and plans a future
that seems doomed from the start. Somehow, though, she persists
and ultimately finds her place as a twenty-first-century pioneer.

"I rolled down my window. The air
rushed in like a flood of invisible cotton, soft and edgeless.
It smelled like the earth baked in sun. Oh god: it could all
be so beautiful, it could, it could, if we wanted. I yelled above
the radio and the wind rushing in: 'Madeleine, I want to be free
as wild horses, I want to live among the buffalo, I want to let
my hair grow to my knees and swim naked in cold rivers. I want
to live, to live, to live until I die and nothing can stop me
now. I WANT TO BE FREEEEEEE!' "Excerpt from Chasing
Montana

Reviews

"[C]rystalline writing, and a saucy sense of self, both
help Chasing Montana stand out on the bookshelf. Soderlind's
refreshing remembrance of a road trip is set a couple of decades
ago, when two newspaper gals from New Jersey, yearning to escape
the daily grind of spiritually deadening jobs, set out for Montana....
Narratives about chasing the meaning of life down a lonesome
highway are too often literary cliches. This quiet story breathes
fresh air into a stale genre."Q Syndicate Book
Marks

"Have you ever wondered what it would
feel like to quit your job to find yourself? In reporter Lori
Soderlind's case, she wound up in Montana with a friend she's
half in love with, trying to figure out what compelled her grandfather
to move from Wisconsin to the middle of nowhere . . . In the
end, Soderlind doesn't get the girl or move to Montana for good.
That doesn't mean it wasn't worth the trip. "The
Oregonian (Portland's daily paper)

"This tale of love's illusions lost
and found should win fans both lesbian and straight."Booklist
(from the American Library Association)

"Chasing Montana is great.
It's an artful, emotional, funny exploration of the temptations
and troubles of life back in the real world, why some of us leave
it behind (and some of us can't), and whether it matters."Outside
Bozeman magazine

"Lori Soderlind has written a beautiful
memoir about disappointment in America. . . . Chasing Montana
is about . . . the inevitability of disappointment in a culture
that promises all dreams come true. We chase those dreams and
they're like rainbows: We can see them but we can never touch
them."
The Salt Lake Tribune

"It is a Montana state of mind, not New York, that preoccupies
the primary character of "Chasing Montana," who also
happens to be the book's author.
Lori Soderlind's memoir is more about a search for her identity
than a geographic portion of America. It is a yearning to feel
connected and true to herself, more than her desire to escape
an urban lifestyle that has long seemed too stifling and barren.
more
Mary Bergin, The Capital Times, Madison, WI

Lori
Soderlind worked for fifteen years
at a variety of newspapers and magazines before becoming a journalism
professor at Norwalk Community College in Norwalk, Connecticut.
She lives in New York City and Saratoga Springs, New York. This
is her first book.

Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.)

"An understated
and moving memoir that feels like a road trip with a really good
friend. But more than that, it's a subtle social commentary,
a travel story, a coming out, and an epitaph for the ghost towns
of the West. Chasing Montana will be a new road favorite for
meandering women across the land."Mack
Friedman, author of Setting the Lawn on Fire